A lot of people ask me if I were shipwrecked, and could only have one book, what would it be? I always say "How to Build a Boat" - Stephen Wright

"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails."- William A. Ward

"Cruising has two pleasures. One is to go out in wider waters from a sheltered place. The other is to go into a sheltered place from wider waters."- Howard Bloomfield

"...the best thing for a cut or abrasion was to go swimming in salt water. Later down the road of life, I made the discovery that salt water was also good for the mental abrasions one inevitably acquires on land."- Jimmy Buffett

Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Give him a fishing lesson and he'll sit in a boat drinking beer every weekend.- Alex Blackwell

"Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks."- Warren Buffett

"When I forget how talented God is, I look to the sea."-Whoopi Goldberg

An Introduction to Our World Famous Residents

When did they arrive?

On October 17, 1989, the San Francisco Bay Area was hit by a major earthquake. While the PIER 39 Marina sustained very little physical damage at the hands of Loma Prieta, the impact on business was immediate and devastating. Tourists, the mainstay of San Francisco’s economy, stayed away, locals cocooned in their own neighborhoods, while the local boating community focused on relief services. Coupled with an already declining economy, there seemed little hope of a swift recovery.

In December of ’89, one large male California Sea lion arrived at PIER 39 Marina's West Harbor. He was quickly joined by 60 to 70 of his closest pinniped friends in the coming weeks, and by February of 1990, the population grew to more than 300!

Due in part to the available dock space, plentiful herring supply and the PIER 39 Marina’s protected environment, the sea lions soon took over K dock and became an international story. Media and tourists from around the world traveled to see the mysterious emergence of these playful flippered animals; they came to symbolize a bright spot in the wake of the Loma Prieta disaster. Business turned around, and to this day, visitors come from far and wide to witness these “Sea Lebrities!”